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Talking to Bad Guys

In an interview with NPR, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage wondered aloud why the United States was not engaged in direct dialogue with Syria concerning the ongoing crisis in Lebanon.

We’re not…using all the levers that we have, such as having the Secretary of State talk to the Syrians. I think they want to get involved. I think they want to become more central to the solution. And you might as well give them the opportunity. If they step up to it, fine. If they don’t, we’ll know them for what they are.

NPR’s Renée Montagne followed up:

The administration has made it pretty clear that they are not interested in talking directly to Syria. Why draw that bright of a line?

Armitage:

I don’t know. I think they’ve talked themselves into this.

My own view is … you have to have a dialogue….We have to be able to sit and listen to the Syrians in this case, and see if they have the desire, the courage and the wisdom to get involved in a positive way.

We get a little lazy, I think, when we spend all our time as diplomats talking to our friends and not to our enemies.

On Sunday, John McLaughlin, deputy director of central intelligence from 2000 to 2004, suggested much the same thing in a Washington Post op-ed entitled “We Have to Talk to Bad Guys”:

Among the five lessons to be drawn from the recent fighting in the Middle East is this gem:

even superpowers have to talk to bad guys. The absence of a diplomatic relationship with Iran and the deterioration of the one with Syria – two countries that bear enormous responsibility for the current crisis – leave the United States with fewer options and levers than might otherwise have been the case….We will have to get over the notion that talking to bad guys somehow rewards them or is a sign of weakness. As a superpower, we ought to be able to communicate in a way that signals our strength and self-confidence.

Makes sense to me.

Armitage and McLaughlin are now out of government. Do they still talk to people on the inside? Is anyone listening?